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FEATURE -- ICT 33
Classrooms have changed very little in the
last few 100 years. Sure, they've adopted
technologies like laptops and desktop com-
puters, and interactive whiteboards, but the
fundamental pedagogical paradigms that
drive teaching and learning haven't changed.
Classrooms still operate pretty much
between 9am and 3:30pm, five days a week;
students are still grouped according to geo-
graphical proximity and the pragmatic con-
siderations of timetabling; a class typically
involves a single teacher responsible for 25
or so students, who meet at a scheduled
time, in a room allocated by a timetabler.
The adoption of technologies such as
computers and interactive whiteboards has
enabled students and teachers to do what
they have always done better and faster,
and to produce work that is more profes-
sional, but in many cases it hasn't allowed
teachers and students to do things that are
completely new.
Typically, teachers take their class to a
computer lab rather than the library to do
a research project, and most students can
locate information for their research faster
using computers than they were able to do
using library books. They also have access
to a greater breadth and depth of infor-
mation. Essentially, though, they're doing
what students have always done: locating
and using information that is collected in
class time, under the direction of a teacher.
Likewise, interactive whiteboards allow
teachers to present information to their
classes that is more likely to engage students
than if it were written on a whiteboard,
because they can incorporate multimedia,
perform live internet searches and so on.
Once again, though, this isn't a new
application: teachers have always sought
to engage their students using interesting
visual aids that supplement the text-based
learning that is taking place. All too often,
teachers with interactive whiteboards are
still doing what teachers have always done:
standing in front of the room, controlling
the flow of information to a group of 25 or
so students who have been timetabled to be
together. The interactive whiteboard makes
the flow of information more efficient, more
engaging, perhaps, but a teacher using an
interactive whiteboard in this way is doing
nothing fundamentally different to what
teachers have always done.
The promise and threat of emerging
technologies
Emerging technologies provide the oppor-
tunity, indeed the necessity for us to radi-
cally rethink what a classroom is and who
comprises a class. They invite some pretty
fundamental questions. When and how
should class members attend class? Does a
class need to involve members who meet in
an actual place? Do they have to meet dur-
ing the school day?
Emerging technologies such as podcast-
ing, blogging, discussion forums, chat,
YouTube, social bookmarking, social net-
working and the use of mobile phones mean
that our students are more connected to
each other and to the world than has ever
been the case before. High school students
can now get details of the human genome or
up-to-date photographs taken from NASA
space probes, and can watch live webcams
of thousands of places in the world.
If you think this incredible access to
information makes the cu rrent revolution
remarkable, think about this: what's really
remarkable is that ou r students are interact-
ing in a web 2.0 community, uploading their
own data such as blogs, podcasts, videos,
weather obser vations and reviews of prod-
ucts.
TECHNOLOGIES THAT STUDENTS FIND ENGAGING ARE EXTENDING
THE CLASSROOM BEYOND ITS PHYSICAL WALLS AND THE SCHOOL
TIMETABLE, MAKING IT ACCESSIBLE ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, AS
ANDREW DOUCH EXPLAINS.